


Run Away With Me

by astaria51 (winged)



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Angst and Humor, Anxiety Disorder, Awkward Sexual Situations, Awkwardness, Bipolar Disorder, Cameos, Dark, Depression, Don't Have to Know Canon, Drugs, First Love, First Time, Homelessness, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Illness, Mental Institutions, Movie Reference, Multiple Pairings, POV Alternating, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Prostitution, Reference to sexual assault, Runaway, Self-Harm, Triggers, Work In Progress, self-injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winged/pseuds/astaria51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When chronic-runaway Frank is forced to room with Mikey, a depressed rich kid, after being institutionalized, he doesn't expect to hit it off, much less to invite the boy to take off with him. But then, there's a lot he doesn't expect. (AU based very loosely on the movie <i>Times Square</i>; previously posted on my bandom journal as "That Times Square AU".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. roses in the hospital

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to be working on this about a chapter twice a year, but who knows, it might get done someday.
> 
> Warnings apply here for a lot of things, primarily depictions of mental illness, self-injury, and institutionalization, but also homelessness, drugs, etc. I've tried to warn for as many things as I could think of in the tags. There are lots of happy funny moments but lots of moments that could be triggering so read with caution if that's something that bothers you.
> 
>  _Times Square_ is a movie by Allan Moyle and Jacob Brackman, about two girls who essentially run away from a hospital and fall in love and start a punk band. Only by the time it got out it was pretty much a venue for a soundtrack and substantially less gay. Given that Moyle actually walked off set because the producers annoyed him so much, I don't feel too bad telling you you can watch it [here](http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=41A802AACF76ABEF) (if it's still up). It's worth the watch, especially as it had a great cult effect in queer, riot grrrl and punk circles, including standbys of the 90s.
> 
> Anyway, standard disclaimers apply: these things never happened, etc etc - ESPECIALLY in this case.

The admissions area of the hospital is deceptively open, purple and green and blue, glass and reflective tile, plastic chairs with predictable holes where people tear at them. It's like every emergency room Frank's ever been in: a sullen teenager ignoring her parents, a couple of doctors shouting over a bleeding girl being strapped to a gurney, a boy muttering something to himself and avoiding everyone's gaze.

Except this isn't exactly University Hospital, and everyone waiting is under 18.

Frank's antsy sitting down; he bounces one knee irritably. Tears at the hole, lights a cigarette.

"You. You," the muttering boy manages before falling to his quiet repetitions again, and Frank says,

" _What?_ " The boy's constant anxiety feels like someone is scraping their nails on a chalkboard.

"You're-not-supposed-to-smoke-in-here," he explodes, and Frank rolls his eyes and flicks him off, making a _be quiet_ face at him. Inside a room surrounded by shatterproof glass, his social worker is talking to the admitting nurse. They're nodding at each other; all politeness and satisfied smiles.

  _This is such a fucking trap_ , Frank thinks; everyone keeps talking to him like he's so lucky, that he got out easy. Well, fuck that; here they can _control his fucking mind_ <. Injections, pills.

  _These will make you feel better. We're going to help you. This will calm you down_.

Just swallow. Nod and smile. Walk in line.

Become a clone.

Well, they're not going to do it to him.

 

The thought occurs to him that Karen knows all this: that from the beginning her determined, caring attitude has been a farce. The smiling, condescending doctors don't give a shit about him or how he feels; and why should they, when no one else ever has. Why would Karen? Her determined, concerned attitude has been a big lie all along. Maybe she's just phoning it in, maybe she's in it with the judge. It doesn't matter.

He jumps up, bangs his hand flat against the window a couple times. "I'm not doing this," he yells loud enough for them to hear. "This is bullshit."

A big male nurse sticks his head out from a room down the hall, eyes him.

"Did you hear me?" Frank continues, since they're ignoring him, with maybe a slight glance of consternation. "I'm not fucking doing this." In the waiting area, the nervous boy is now simultaneously biting his nails and muttering full sentences behind his hand, like a secular Rosary. The mother of the quiet girl puts a protective arm around her daughter's shoulder and the girl shifts forward about two inches on the seat to get away from her, watching Frank with something like envy. 

Karen excuses herself. "Frankie, we talked about this."

"We didn't talk about shit," he snaps. "You said you were going to try and get the charges dropped. Sentence fucking reduced. Whatever. Does this fucking look reduced?"

"It does from here, Frank."

"Yeah, well, of course it fucking does to you!" He's yelling; he didn't mean to be but it all just sucks. He takes a long drag off his cigarette and lets the smoke coil hot and sharp in his lungs for a long time before exhaling.

"Frank, calm down." Somewhere between the third use of his name in three sentences and the over-patient, patronizing tone, he snaps.

"You want me to fucking calm down? Give me one good reason why I should calm down, Karen! You knew this was going to happen." He's in her face now, stabbing to emphasize his point, still holding the lit cigarette.

She takes a few steps back, fearful of him: something new for her. "Just take it easy, honey..."

 

The admitting nurse steps behind her, smiles tersely. "Hi Frank. I need you to calm down."

 He ignores them, grabs Karen by the shoulders, shaking her, a little bit desperate when their eyes meet. "You promised me, you _promised me_ it'd be okay, and you knew I would end up here again. Just like juvie but with fucking pills. You lied, you fucking _lied_ , you're a _liar_ \--"

And then he's being pulled off of Karen, physically lifted and set down a few feet away by the big male nurse he spotted earlier. "Okay, playtime's over. Time for a little nap."

"Get your motherfucking hands off me, I'm not taking a little _anything_."

"I think it'd be a good idea if you fucked off and died in a fire," Frank says nastily, and elbows him in the lower stomach, hard, trying to use the momentum to get away and run - somewhere. He gets about two inches away before the man has him down on the floor, hands behind his back. Frank can feel his pulse drumrolling against the floor, his blood in his face, has to get away, _has to_ -

"Zach, can you hurry up with the lorazepam?" the guy yells, and a voice coming closer says,

"You rang?" with a laugh, and then a sharp pain in his shoulder tells Frank he doesn't have much choice about this anymore.

It's always fucking lorazepam. It doesn’t knock him out or turn him into a drooling zombie, just makes him kind of out of it and sleepy and harmless: still-irritated at everyone around him, only now in a form that kind of wonders why they won’t leave him alone so he can pass out.

So he lets them check him in, go through standard procedure, wheel him up to his room. He rests his head on the crook between the wheelchair arm and its back and watches the world move around him until they stop abruptly at his room.

 

The door's propped, but the nurse knocks on it anyway. Inside Frank can see the lights are off; a thin, small kid is looking out the window. 

The nurse opens the door and wheels Frank in. "Hey, Mikey," he says.

It's not the same way they talk to Frank, like they're talking to a four year old or an asshole who's wasting their time. Or an asshole four year old. His tone with Mikey is bright, pointedly casual, like Mikey and he are buddies who happened to bump into each other.

"Frank's gonna be your new roomie," he adds, helping Frank into the bed. 

The boy looks over, startled. "What?"

"I said, Frank will be rooming with you," he repeats, his tone losing the buddy-buddy feel a little bit.

"I thought my dad paid for a private room..."

"Look, I just work here," he says shortly, "and we're out of beds. 'Night." He pushes the wheelchair back out empty, leaves the door propped.

Frank blinks at the boy, rolls over, and goes to sleep.

When he wakes, afternoon sun is filtering in through the window and his roommate is still sitting, staring out it in roughly the same position he was in last night. More aware now, Frank watches him for a minute, noticing the angles that make him up, the orange sunglow on his skin.

Frank sits up. "You're gonna get bedsores that way," he says. The boy's wearing different clothing than last night, a band hoodie over standard issue pajamas, which means he hasn't just checked in, and in Frank's estimation, therefore means he should probably be in the wing eating or watching TV or playing checkers or something else equally inane and time-consuming.

Without moving, Mikey says, "You're probably going to be moving soon. My --"

"...dad paid for a private room, yeah, I know. Are you _always_ this charming?"

Mikey turns to look at him and falters a little. "Um," he says, "...Pretty much."

A nurse knocks on the door and they fall silent, snapping their eyes to the side. "Just checking in," she says, ducking her head in, signs the clipboard on the door, and wanders off.

 

"Sooo..." Frank taps his fingers _ratatatat_ against the bedrail, a frantic riff; anxious and longing for a cigarette. "Voluntary or involuntary?"

"What?"

"Commitment. Treatment. Incarceration. Your choice really."

"Oh..." Mikey takes a second over that, hovering. "I don't know. Doesn't really matter, when your parents sign all the papers."

Frank doesn't _have_ parents; he thinks about that. "I don't know," he says, "I think there's still a difference."  

"Well, I wasn't begging to come here, let's put it that way." Mikey raises his eyebrows at something he's not saying and tightens his lips. A nurse comes by on checks, preventing Frank from further questioning; they both fall silent.  

After a moment Mikey raises his left hand to bite his nails; the hoodie falls away a bit, revealing the edge of a tell-tale cuff of gauze and translucent tape. Frank doesn't say anything, just takes it in. Okay.  

Mikey sees him looking and shakes his hoodie sleeves down over his hands. "Are you always this up in everyone's space?" 

"What space? I don't know if you've noticed but you're in a fucking psychiatric hospital." Frank lowers his voice as a nurse walks by. "Anyway, they come check on you every five minutes, I already knew you didn't come in because of a fucking panic attack."  

"You'd be surprised," Mikey says vaguely and stares at his bitten-down nails.  

"Also, I'm across the fucking room and I didn't say anything. Did you know paranoia is a sign of insanity?"  

Mikey rolls his eyes; just then a nurse knocks again. Frank thinks this is getting a little ridiculous, but she just says, "Dinner, boys."

Mikey gets up obediently; Frank deadpans, "I've decided to starve myself to death."  

She doesn't smile or look concerned; her face barely twitches. "Should I write that on your chart?"  

"I like to think you make those decisions better than I do," he says calmly.  

"You know I do." She glances back at him before she heads back down the hall. "I mean it. I don't want to have to come tell you again."

"What, are you going to spank me?" Frank mutters at the empty space where the nurse just was. 

"Are you really not going?" Mikey asks, incredulous.  

"Hell no."   

"Why not?"  

"Because fuck them and fuck dinnertime. ...Why, would you miss me if I got moved to the ED wing?" Frank grins shamelessly.  

"I told you," Mikey says, stiffly, "You're not staying here anyway."

 

Another day and a half belies that, however, and the weekend brings visiting day with a flood of parents and scheduled visits and family therapy and even-more-awkward-than-normal group.   

"So," Frank says to Mikey over checkers, "Are you going to tell your dad to kick me out when he comes?"  

"Yeah, probably," Mikey says. "King me."  

"Your highness," Frank says, flourishing with one hand as he stacks a checker on Mikey's piece. He stares at the board. "Jesus fucking Christ, how does anyone play this game? It's made out of stupid."  

"It was played by the ancient Egyptians."

 

"That must be how they all died. I could kill for a goddamn cigarette."  

Mikey looks at him; laughs in a short exhale of breath, and says, "Yeah, me too," with the first unforced smile Frank's seen from him since he's been here.  

"I'm thinking about busting out of here," Frank says casually, flicking a checker forward.  

"You and everyone else." Mikey raises an eyebrow.  

"No, I really am." Frank watches Mikey jump and remove one of his players, and frowns at the board.  

"Last week I heard Max say he was going to fly out of here," Mikey comments, and he says it like it's gossip but it's clearly a review of Frank's plan.  

Frank shrugs; "Big fucking deal, Max is manic as hell, he probably thought he was a motherfucking _kite_ last week." Mikey says nothing and raises his eyebrows critically. "What? He is. _What._ "  

"And you're perfectly normal."  

"I'm a fucking punk faggot freak, thanks. And fuck anyone who wants me to be _normal_. Much less tries to explain why I'm not." Mikey stares at him for a second. "But I don't think I can fly," he adds as an afterthought.  

"Just move. Jesus Christ." Mikey rubs his neck.  

" _I_ think I can _walk_ out of here," Frank says confidently, ignoring Mikey.  

"You're crazier than Max. Or just stupider."  

"Yeah, well, stupid me just jumped half your pieces," Frank says, and Mikey looks down in astonishment to see that the board is mostly red.  

"I...yeah, you did."  

"King me," Frank says triumphantly, and grins.

 

"Michael Way?" someone calls, "Your father's here."  

"Gotta go," Mikey says, " _your majesty_."

 

 

Frank's walking back to the room when he hears a familiar voice, in a not-so-familiar tone; Mikey, saying, "I'm sorry, Dad," softly, almost a little mortified.  

Frank slows his pace, trying to hear them better, to come along side. He nearly bumps into a flower arrangement in the hall - new and improved for family day - and pauses, vigorously inspecting it while trying to stretch his peripheral vision as far as it can go.  

"Is it true? Is this what we're spending thousands of dollars on? Risking my campaign for?"  

"I..." Mikey falters.  

His father continues. "I can't believe these goddamn shrinks think it's my attitude that needs to change. As if _I'm_ the one making poor life decisions. What were you thinking, Michael?"  

"I." The teenager stares at the ground. "I, um."  

"Stop stammering like a little girl."  

Mikey clears his throat and takes a breath. "I wasn't thinking, sir. I'm sorry."  

They've paused in the hall just shy of Frank; Mikey's father's back is to him, which is good, because Frank is pretty much staring at them at this point.  

"No. You _weren't_ thinking. Now here's what's going to happen. You're going to finish up here. You're going to do everything the doctors say – follow your Plan to the letter, you understand? You're going to be a perfect little patient..."  

Frank would like to punch the asshole in the face, but he can’t do that, so he’s standing behind Mikey’s father picking aggressively at the carnation arrangement instead. Something in his stomach boils at the words being shot like missiles at his roommate. Mikey, doing everything to avoid his father’s gaze, catches sight of him. Frank catches Mikey's eye, pulls a carnation free, looks innocently at it, twirling it in his hands.  

Mikey, for his part, is trying not to look like he’s looking anywhere in particular. Frank isn’t sure why he’s making such an effort; his father is prattling on – he doesn’t have time in his speech-making to notice that he even has offspring. Which may explain how Mikey got himself a “threat of harm” bracelet like Frank’s that means he can’t refuse medicine without a thorough Plan evaluation.  

Frank meets Mikey’s eyes and plucks a carnation petal: he chews it up and eats it. Mikey blinks, startled, and narrowly avoids making a face; his eyes, though, are amused. Frank feels like he’s succeeded at some game he didn’t know he was playing. He winks at him; bites off another petal. He licks his lips, makes it just a little bit slutty, like he's really enjoying it. If he wasn’t trying to be unobtrusive he’d have made some over-the-top sound of delight, but unfortunately, Mikey’s dad hasn’t jumped off a bridge yet.  

Mikey stares.  

Meanwhile, his father is still, somewhat unbelievably, talking. "And you can deal with whatever," he waves his hand dismissively, like he's shooing a persistent fly, " _sexuality issues_ you have while you're here."

 

At that last bit, Frank raises his eyebrows at Mikey and covers his mouth with the carnation in mock shock. Mikey sets his jaw.  

His father continues, "When you come home, it's going to be done. All of it. The _gay_ thing, the cutting. All of it will stop. This family has had enough trouble from running around for you. So you clean up your act, you understand?"  

"Yes, sir," Mikey says, his voice breaking just a little.  

Frank bites the head off the carnation savagely, and Mikey's father startles a little at the crunch, turning. _Shit._ Frank freezes, smiles tightly with purple carnation poking out of his mouth. 

"This place is full of fucking _psychos_ ," he snaps. "I'll see you in a week."  

"Yes, sir," Mikey says again, and his father turns on his heel and leaves; Mikey is left standing in the middle of the hall watching him go.   

He looks so utterly broken, not even angry, just stepped on. Frank spits the carnation pieces out and they flutter into the space between the two boys like confetti.

 

Mikey manages a half-hearted smile, but it fades away as soon as it appears. "You're crazy, you know?" he says.  

"Yeah. Look," Frank replies, holding out the head of the carnation for inspection; one single purple-and-white petal remains, clinging. "‘Loves me’."  

"Let's not even talk about that shit," Mikey says, and trudges to the room.  

 

Frank isn't exactly known for his regard of personal space, but something tells him not to ask questions, and they fall into uneasy silence for the rest of the night. Mikey looks out the window; Frank sits, and gets up and paces, and watches TV in the common room and comes back to Mikey looking out the window and goes to sleep uneasily.  

He wakes up at three in the morning and doesn't know why, the room fuzzy in the dark, and still, blue nightlight filtering in from the hall like usual. He turns over to see Mikey lying on the edge of his bed, looking at him.  

"Hey," he says, unfazed and more awake.

 "Hey." Mikey's voice is a little rough from disuse; he clears his throat and looks away. "I never thanked you for --"  

"Eating a carnation? Man, you know I'd eat flowers for you anytime." Frank grins, puts a hand to his chest in mock-affiliation.  

"It was sort of amazing," Mikey says and makes a face like he knows that sounds as weird as it does.  

"Your father's sort of a dick," Frank says in response.  

"Yeah, I don't know, he's running for mayor." Mikey rubs his neck awkwardly.  

"I guess that makes sense then," he answers dryly, although it sort of does; probably anyone who'd want to be mayor would be sort of a dick.  

"It's just, we're supposed to be this perfect family. Like. Have you seen his ads? They're all about God and family values and putting Belleville on the right path."  

"Must have missed it."  

"Yeah, well, look out for it, it's my big fifteen minutes of fame." Mikey shudders like he just bathed in something cold and disgusting. "On second thought, don't. All dressed up in a dress shirt and khakis and my hair parted down the middle."  

"Does your hair even _part_ down the middle?" Frank grins and Mikey smiles a little in response. "Fucking _Belleville_ , dude. What are you doing in fucking Hoboken?"

  
"Specialists," Mikey mumbles, squinting into the distance. "How do you do it?" he asks suddenly. "Just not give a fuck, I mean. My dad...I wish I could just not care what he thinks."  

Frank says, "Then don't. Don't give a fuck."  

Mikey extends an arm, almost casually, off the edge of the bed. "I'm obviously so good at that."  

Frank reaches to take his still-bandaged wrist carefully; runs a thumb over the soft skin between the bandage and Mikey's hand. He thinks of his own scars, acquired in such different ways. "Did you really try to kill yourself because you're gay?"  

Mikey is very still with his hand in Frank's, and he doesn't quite look at him when he answers. "It wasn't just that. That just happened to be the only thing he wouldn't have already known about." He sighs. "The fucking doc thought he was doing me a favor, like my dad would rather me be gay and feel better. Whatever. He probably wishes I'd died."  

"I'm sure he doesn't," Frank says softly.  

"Yeah, I guess."  

"I'm glad you didn't, anyway." He feels awkward and releases Mikey.

 

"Thanks." Mikey curls his arm underneath him, bites his nail.  

Frank's suddenly angry. "It's such bullshit. Why do you let them control you? Why care what they think? Everybody tells us who to be. Parents, docs, the people on fucking TV, the government. Go to school, get a job, be stronger, be taller, be smarter. Get married, have two-point-five kids, be rich, be successful. Fuck that! Just be _yourself_."  

"...and then you end up here."  

"Fuck here. I'm getting out. Tomorrow. You should come with me."  

Mikey blinks and swallows. "You're crazy," he says softly.  

" _Come with me._ "  

"You're going to get caught and given lots of meds and put on the fourth floor," he says, shaking his head, "and I'll never see you again."  

Frank grins. "...Would you miss me if I got put up on the fourth floor?"  

"Yeah, I would, you fucking asshole," Mikey says, and rolls over.


	2. leave it all behind

When Mikey wakes up in the morning, Frank isn’t there. Neither is Mikey’s favorite t-shirt. Oh well. Why not, after all – Frank has one approved item to Mikey’s half-dozen. Besides, the idea of Frank stealing it makes Mikey smile in a really stupid way. Which is, of course, followed by a self-loathing chaser, but it’s still different – better – than anything he’s felt in a long time.  

He sits in the morning light and scribbles in his notebook, makes a face at it and leaves it on his bed in favor of breakfast and possibly finding his roommate.  

Frank isn’t there either, however, and when he comes in for breakfast, Mikey stoops to asking the nurse on duty if she’s seen him today. "As a matter of fact," she says, thoughtfully, "You just missed him; he got in here bright and early. Sorry, hon." She offers a sympathetic smile: the psych staff mostly likes Mikey. He doesn’t cause them too many problems except the occasional reticence in group and a habit of knocking things over.  

"Yeah – thanks anyway, Janet." He twists a half-smile. Despite the fact that Frank’s just barely been here for a week, he feels like it’s been forever. He’s gotten accustomed to Frank’s presence at his side – dragging him to meals, walking to group together, Frank’s stalwart vendetta against anything resembling a prescribed order and the tiny acts of civil disobedience that remind Frank, if, most likely, not the nurses, that the war isn’t over. The winks, grins and inside jokes that make Mikey feel (simultaneously) wonderfully unique and completely awkward.  

Time has a tendency to be meaningless on the wing anyway.

 

Without him, now, he feels a little like the new kid at school, even though he knows everyone here and is at least polite towards most of them. He finally wanders over and sits next to Gabe, who’s chewing his food and watching a spot in the air a few feet away with some interest.  

Mikey doesn’t know what Gabe’s deal is, but he’s not a bad dude. And honestly, given the available options, he’d rather be sitting next to a kid who rambles incoherently about snakes from space who love dance parties, than any of the many more legitimate threats to his safety.  

Gabe snaps out of his stupor and says, "Hey there, Mikeyway," with a slightly knowing grin that makes Mikey a little less sure of his "who to sit next to" logic.  

"Uh, hey, Gabe," he says, poking at his eggs. “What’s up?”  

"I should be asking you that," he says enigmatically, and Mikey raises his eyebrow a little. "Your friend Frank seems to be missing," he adds, leading. Mikey stabs a scrambled egg bit, impatiently, and says,  

"Yeah, have you seen him?"

"Not …recently..." Gabe narrows his eyes at that same spot in the air and purses his lips thoughtfully.  

Mikey drums his fingers on the table and considers whether he might have made a big mistake about that thin line between _talking about snakes_ and _dangerous to others_. “Gabe. What about _before_ recently?” he prods impatiently.  

Gabe smiles contentedly into the atmosphere. "…He might have swapped some pharmaceuticals for my hoodie."  

"Oh." Mikey frowns; Gabe’s well-worn purple jacket is, in fact, missing. Frank got up early to go on a kleptomaniacal clothing spree? He tries to imagine Frank wearing Gabe’s hoodie and comes up with an amusing image of Frank down to his knees in purple cotton. “Do you know where he is?”  

Gabe looks seriously at Mikey and says, “…I made certain promises that entail not revealing his location.”  

“To Frank, or The Cobra? Oh, fuck it.” Mikey goes to get up and Gabe puts a hand on his arm.  

“He said something about talking to Claudio.”  

Well, there goes that list of safe people to talk to. Mikey grimaces. “Thanks, Gabe. …um, you have fun with the pills. Be careful, and shit.” He’s pretty sure Frank’s cocktail has some stuff in it that could seriously mess someone up, and he likes Gabe.  

Gabe beams. “Don’t worry about it, Mikeyway. It’s in the plan.”  

Mikey gets up to clear and pick up his meds from Carter, the nurse on duty at the window.  

He’s never not taken them while he’s been here, hell, even before he came here he was on a variety of pills – ADD meds when he was younger, then a stream of different SSRIs and SNRIs later on, nothing ever effective enough to make him sit down and shut up and stop thinking.

A few weeks before The Big Fuckup; a few patchy weeks of rebellion throughout his pre-teen years; some ill-remembered non-childhood before the age of eight: other than that he’s been taking various forms of sedatives his whole life.

He wonders if he could even survive without them now. What would happen to his body without meds? Would his brain even know what to do? Would _he_?

Is it really worth it to take them just to avoid finding out?

He’s never said any of this, in as many words, in group. He’s never said _anything_ like this, because he’s never even wondered about it. He needs medication. Of course he does. He needs it, because his parents tell him he does, because a doctor told him he does; if he didn’t need it they wouldn’t be telling him he did; if he didn’t need it he wouldn’t think the way he does.

So why does he still feel fucked up all the time?

Frank doesn’t take his medication, although Mikey knows he has been on meds before. And he’s clearly a little weird, okay; Mikey has never met anyone so outrageous and spontaneous; the first to declare a dance party with Gabe or, for fuck’s sake, eat flowers to make Mikey smile.

But he’s so passionate and captivating, and he gets so vibrantly angry and sad and excited in ways that Mikey can’t even remember.

And maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with why Mikey wraps his hand around the cup, tips it back casually with an echoing tilt of his head and lets the small crumbly pills slide into the pocket of his thumb with the attending looking on. Maybe he’s just tired of it all.

He palms them, and when Carter glances approvingly over his empty cup, he just smiles tersely; after all, he’s one of the ‘good ones’.

 

He heads back to the room, but Frank isn’t there, so he looks for Claudio in the TV room, and then the rec room. He finds Claudio, but not Frank; the dude is hard to miss, a mop of hair doodling in his journal. All of them were encouraged to write in little notebooks provided by the docs as part of their progress in group; he suspects Claudio’s “progress” comes complete with anatomical diagrams.

That’s not fair, but the guy just creeps him out. It’s not so much what he says as what he leaves out. Okay, sometimes it’s what he says. He’s quiet, usually, but in a sort of paranoid, suspicious way, and he comes up with really freaky stuff in group. And maybe it’s all for effect, like Frank’s crazy shit sometimes, but. The thing is, he’s been here since before Mikey, or even Gabe, was checked in, and no one has any idea why, really. Except that he’s a creep, which to Mikey doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to put someone in inpatient psych: it’s the follow-through that gets you here.

Hence.

“Hey,” he says, drumming his fingers a little against his side, and Claudio snaps his eyes up. “Uh. Chess?”

Claudio nods and smirks a little like he’s going to own Mikey’s king so hardcore, and Mikey wonders if it’s better for him if he wins or loses.

They sit and play for a few minutes and he finally says, partly out of frustration and partly to mask the fact that he’s about to take Claudio’s knight, “So, Gabe told me Frank wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah, we talked.” Claudio says tensely and takes one of Mikey’s knights rather viciously with a pawn. Mikey examines the board studiously and decides not to go with putting Claudio in check; he takes a pawn instead. Claudio moves halfway across the board with his queen and says in a more normal tone, “He just wanted some information about the inner workings of this place.”

“…what kind of information?”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” he says, ominously.

“You and everyone else, apparently. What the hell. Is Frank really a member of the Mafia, or something?”

An expression of _that’d be cool_ briefly flits across Claudio’s face. “Just one of the fellow _few_ who understand honor,” he says. “I can’t help you. …I can take your queen, though.” He grins widely.

Mikey rolls his eyes. “…Check-and-mate.” He flicks his knight over to the empty space where Claudio’s rook just was. Claudio’s eyes darken and he searches the board for a way out, doesn’t find one, and knocks his king over with a swipe.

“Good game,” he says, a little darkly, rising from the table, and Mikey smiles tightly. Claudio pauses. “Your boyfriend’s probably looking for Lindsey,” he says, “if he’s still going through with it.”

“Lindsey’s on Four,” Mikey says softly, “I thought.”

“She’s back,” Claudio says simply, and walks out.

Mikey watches some TV and heads back to the room. By the time he comes back to lunch and the hour is heading swiftly towards group, there’s been no sign of Frank, much less of the supposedly-returned Lindsey.

 

Why would Lindsey be back? The nurses hate her; she’s about as rowdy as Frank with at least as much disdain for authority. Other patients see a sociable, sarcastic young woman; the docs get her spitting and cursing and fighting. She’s tried to run away three times. During the most recent incident, the one that got her sent to Four, she set fire to her room so she could slip out without being noticed while the building was being evacuated. At least, that’s the story Mikey heard from Pete who sometimes makes out with Alicia who heard it from Frances who _knows Lindsey, okay_?

The only thing Mikey can imagine is that the nurses on Four couldn’t stand her either. But really, it’s just a lot more plausible that Claudio cut Frank up and put him in the walls.

He doesn’t even want to go to group. He never wants to go to group, but right now he wants to curl up in his room and not move. Talking to Gabe about this was one thing, and even Claudio was okay, but this whole thing feels like a wild goose chase. What if something really did happen to Frank? What if he did something wrong? What if…

There’s a distinct problem with meeting people on psych wards. Okay, there are a trillion. And one of them is that the terrible anxious what-ifs that paralyze Mikey every moment of every day are all totally possible. Frank could be dead. He could have died a hundred really stupid tragic deaths and Mikey would most likely not even be told for a few days, or maybe at all until it hit the rumor mill. He could have run away. He could have been put in jail. He could have had a sudden attack of paranoid schizophrenia and think that Mikey’s really an FBI agent with a gun. He could have been moved to a hospital in Newark, or in the city, or in fucking Arkansas.

Who knows. All of it seems so increasingly possible.

Mikey sits down; takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. This is so stupid. So stupid. He’s literally having a panic attack about his missing roommate. He’s sitting on the floor, hyperventilating, because some psycho kid who eats flowers might be dead.

 _Oh god, what if he’s dead._

 

He blinks at a clear high staccato melody close to his ear; the tune pulls him out of it. Someone’s whistling, close by. He knows the song.

Mikey puts on his glasses and looks up just in time to realize, horrified, that he’s sitting on the floor freaking out while Frank is leaning lazily and whistling “I Wanna Be Sedated”, waiting for him.

He scrambles to his feet. If this were a movie, he’d punch Frank in the face, and if it were a totally different movie he’d kiss him, but he thinks both of those would end up with him unhappy and confused, so he just stares incredulously.

And then blinks, because Frank’s wearing a gigantic purple hoodie over Mikey’s Anthrax shirt, and it’s all very weird. “Where the _fuck_ have you been?”

“All over. Doesn’t matter. We gotta go.”

Mikey’s stomach twists sharply, because after all, he’s not dumb, but Frank can’t possibly mean -- “Frankie, group’s not for another ten—“

“We gotta _go_.” Frank’s insistent, his voice lowering conspiratorially. “Go. Get out. Evacuate. Exit.” He looks at Mikey, his eyes serious; motions back and forth between the two of them, a little beckoning, “you and me” gesture, one corner of his mouth twisting up hopefully.

“…I didn’t know you were serious.”

“I’m always serious.” Frank’s bravado falters just a little. “Come on, Mikey. Run away with me.” He grins a little.

Mikey presses his lips together and fights the urge to throw up. He wants to say, _yes, yes, I’ll run away with you_ , and wonders, a little, what it would feel like to be one of those people out there who just says those things when they want to.

“What do you have here for you?” Frank continues, seeing his hesitation. “What would you be leaving behind? Are the docs just that cool? Would you miss the nurses making sure you’re not dead every five minutes? Or wait, they must be saving the secretly awesome food for you. ”

“It’s not about _here_ , it’s not that I like it so much. I just…I,” Mikey can’t articulate what he means. He gestures vaguely. He doesn’t even know. There’s this terrifying sense of finality, doors slamming shut, if he does this. He’s pretty sure Frank doesn’t get that, that he couldn’t explain it in a way that makes sense to Frank. It doesn’t really make sense to _him_. “If I do this,” he starts, “I can’t just go back, you know?”

“…Back _home_. To your perfect, normal…yeah, no. I can’t offer you that. I understand. ” Frank’s voice is biting; harsh and hurt. “Well, I better go.” He pivots neatly, his shoulders squared, and when Mikey reaches to stop him, he can feel Frank’s whole body tense under his hand.

The feeling of being stretched, almost broken, from the inside out, is so tangible that Mikey feels like his ribs must be showing the strain. “It’s just.” His voice comes out barely audible and he coughs. “What if…I…what if…” In his head, the words hammer clear and fast at his skull. _What if we get caught? What if I am just that fucked up? What if you don’t really like me? …whatifwhatifwhatif--_

“Mikey.” Frank twists under Mikey’s grip to look at him. “We’ve got a six minute window. I’m going. I can’t stay here.” Frank’s voice is strained and his eyes search Mikey’s. “Please come with me.” He sets his jaw a little, expecting rejection.

Mikey takes a breath. “Okay?”

Frank’s eyes go wide: he breaks into a bright grin and throws his arms around Mikey’s neck. Mikey, never one to initiate gestures of affection under the most platonic of circumstances, blushes at the sudden close contact and hugs him back awkwardly with a smile.

“Okay. Okay,” Frank whispers, pulling away and getting serious. “The nurses are gone for a couple minutes, right before group. The security guards will change in --” he looks at the clock, “one minute, and the afternoon guy is slow getting in because he always gets chips. So, we’re good for another… three, four minutes.”

“Wh –“ someone says, and Mikey turns to see Pete standing in the hall, realization dawning over his face. Frank freezes; ready to bolt, or maybe tackle him.

Mikey just feels awful. Pete’s here under similar circumstances as Mikey, though he’s less likely to talk about the why and how of it all. In group and in the rec room, he’s every guy that made fun of Mikey in high school -- the boisterous troublemaker, the outgoing party guy – but at meals, or alone late at night in front of a staticky TV, he opens up, talking about graffiti and _Star Wars_ and shitty vampire movies and the things no one ever says.

Before Frank got here, Pete was probably Mikey’s best friend.

He trusts Pete; he knows he won’t say anything.

But then again, Mikey’s abandoning him.

He gestures with his head for Pete to follow, but Pete just stares in return. In his eyes is a mixture of fear and jealousy.

“Come _on_ ,” Frank snaps, having no time for the complexities of wing social dynamic,

and Mikey mouths, “I’m sorry” at Pete.

They run.

 

Mikey never thought he’d be grateful for socks with treads. They dash past the for-the-moment abandoned nurse’s station and into the stairwell. On the other side of the door, Frank shoves Mikey against the wall.

Mikey, shoulderblades colliding with painted brick and breath slammed out of his body as Frank half-tackles him, blinks, still shaking from adrenaline and utterly baffled by the boy suddenly half a breath away from his face. Frank holds up a finger between their faces, for silence or patience Mikey isn’t sure, but it’s unnecessary: moving without instruction hadn’t even occurred to him.

Frank tears Gabe’s hoodie off and throws it at Mikey. "Here," he instructs in a rushed exhale, "Put this on." Mikey pauses only a moment before pulling off his pajama top and shrugging on the hoodie. He zips it up to his neck, tugging the long sleeves down over his hands.

Frank pulls away just slightly, inspecting him for a second; he frowns, thinking. “Trust me?” he murmurs, reaching for Mikey’s glasses, and Mikey realizes with a sudden shock that he does. Frank nods, stashing them in a pocket, and points at the security camera, resting the tips of his fingers lightly on Mikey’s chest in warning. It’s a blur to Mikey from where he stands, but he knows the cameras, can recall watching the lenses dilate and swivel behind the dark glass. Frank’s eyes are fixed on it.

 

And then he moves. It’s like a gun has gone off. He sprints for the stairs, his hand snapping down to Mikey’s wrist to pull him along. Mikey takes off next to him, flying down flights of stairs he can’t see at all, his heart pounding in his chest.

When Frank skids to a sudden stop on the first floor landing, his hand is still in a death grip on Mikey’s wrist, and Mikey nearly knocks him over. Frank, just beyond the radius of the security camera, holds a hand up, leaning a little to peer through the rails of the stairs to the next flight. Below them, on the basement level, he can hear voices; men are laughing.

Then a door closes and the voices fade; Mikey remembers to breathe again. Frank, without moving, says so quietly it doesn’t even make the hiss of a whisper, "When I say run, run as fast as you can down the stairs and out the door."

 

"What?" Mikey says in Frank’s ear, more out of sudden panic than mishearing.

 _"Run"_ , hisses Frank, and they take off down the stairs and out the basement exit. Mikey blinks a few times: they’re in the garage, by the loading dock. The air is suffused with the smell of wet asphalt and exhaust; the ground is covered in a thin layer of grime, so refreshingly _not_ sanitized white tile that Mikey wants to laugh aloud.

 

Frank is still moving; he drags Mikey around a corner behind a row of ambulances. “Got a question for you.”

“Go,” Mikey says, catching his breath.

“Can you drive?”

Mikey tenses a little, his nails digging into his palm. “Um. I’ve. Never had to.”

Frank grins, bright and charming and _oh, fuck_.

“This is going to be _fun_ then!” He nods at the nearest ambulance. “Get in.”

“What?”

Frank holds up a set of keys and waggles them.

Mikey stares for a minute – running away is one thing, this is grand theft _motherfucking ambulance_ – and weighs his options (which really don’t exist) -- and dashes for the passenger seat. Frank grins and ducks around the other side.

 

He hits the siren and guns it up the ramp. “There should be coats in the back, Lindsey said,” Frank says, “but then buckle the fuck up, bridge traffic is going to be a bitch.”

Lindsey. Well, that makes sense. Mikey dives into the back, half-propelled by Frank’s impulsive but thankfully semi-competent driving and returns with paramedic jackets for both of them. “Bridge traffic?”

Frank is busy for a second trying to figure out how to get out of the parking lot, and he says, “Look, no one gives a shit about some nobody kid like me. Saving some tax dollars, you know? But you’re the fucking mayor-elect of Belleville’s son, okay, people will be looking for you. We’re getting the hell out of Jersey.”

And then they’re out on the street in a burst of sunshine and blue sky and any protest Mikey was about to make is stifled because they’re out, they haven’t been caught, they’re free, and Mikey just laughs helplessly as cars pull out of their way and says, “Just try not to get pulled over.”

“Dude. I’m a fucking paramedic, okay,” Frank says confidently, winking at him. He flips the radio on as they head for the tunnel; Mikey just sits back and laughs.


	3. a brand new name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sorry! Re-edited this about 8 times. Last writing modification to this chapter was Sep. 10, 2011.]

They ditch the ambulance just over the New York side of the bridge; Frank doesn't know the city streets well by car and, in his view, the sooner two runaway teenagers quit driving uptown in a stolen ambulance with Jersey plates, the better.

They find rubber boots in the back, which look really dumb paired with jeans and hoodies but are at least better than walking around Manhattan in socks. In the best of universes, yellow-and-black rain boots over jeans are some new hip trend; worst thing that happens is that they’re correctly identified as homeless.

Mikey sits in the back of the ambulance for a minute, taking his time pulling the boots on, and Frank, who's already ready to go, watches him for a second, wondering just how foreign this whole thing seems to a rich kid like Mikey. He doesn't really have time to baby him, though: it wouldn't help either of them.

So he just says, "Okay?" and feels a giant weight lifted when Mikey flashes a brilliant grin and jumps down, nodding.

"Where are we going?"

Frank rubs a hand absently over his face. "I think – there's this place I used to squat. If we get going it shouldn't take too long."

"Okay." Mikey nods and smiles, a little flushed with exhilaration. "Cool – let's do it." Frank can't help but grin at his naïve enthusiasm.

They start off; it's raining a little, but Frank feels like he's just been let out of a cage; nothing could kill his mood right now. "This is gonna be sweet - I can't wait to show you everything."

"I've been in the city before," Mikey laughs.

Frank has a vision of Mikey being driven around Manhattan in a Lexus towncar and makes a face. "Not _my_ city," he says. "All the back alleys, the best views…It’ll just be us, Mikey. No one holding our hands, or 'checking in', or telling us when to eat and sleep and piss. Just us. Taking care of ourselves – and our own fault if we can't."

Mikey shoves his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, kicking at the ground and grinning, giving Frank a sidelong glance. "It sounds amazing."

Frank grins and looks at the ground. Sometimes the way Mikey looks at him makes him feel awkward. Most of the time people look at him like he's a piece of trash, or just look right through him. Mikey looks at him with trust, and admiration, and something else entirely that he can't even name. He wants to soak it all up so he can hang on to the warmth of it, but he doesn't trust it, not really.

So he looks around instead. Across the street, there’s a Rite-Aid, and he grabs Mikey’s hand in the excitement of a Really Great Idea. "Hey. Let’s cut our hair."

Mikey laughs. "What?"

"Let's cut our hair! You need a disguise, right? You can't just _not wear_ your glasses – and…" he trails off, caught up in the moment. "And, I mean, it'll be like starting fresh." He looks at Mikey, intent. "Let's be new people. It doesn't matter who. Anyone we want."

A grin spreads over Mikey's face and he laughs softly under his breath. "You're ridiculous," he says. "Come on."

 

So they spend the entirety of their combined cash on a throwaway razor, scissors, a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. They sit out behind the store by the dumpsters and the rusty air pump. Frank attacks his own hair, which has grown out to a shaggy emo cut; with the confidence of experience, and a few puddles and dumpsters to squint sideways at, he hacks it down to a long mohawk and shaves it.

"No mohawk for me," Mikey says, dusting himself of Frank's hair, which is everywhere: all over the asphalt, sticking to Frank's shirt, on Mikey's legs.

Frank grins and brushes himself off. He kneels behind Mikey to get a better angle, scooting closer. "Who do you want to be?" he asks.

Mikey takes a breath and says nothing for a long minute, tense against Frank's legs. Finally he says, "I don't know. Anyone. Me, but cooler."

"You _are_ cool." Frank leans sideways, examining Mikey's head in profile.

Mikey ducks and rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Um. I don't know, a fucking rock star."

Frank grins. "That I can do."

He leans up, starts cutting, holding the craft scissors sideways to get something resembling an angle. As pieces of hair fall, Mikey covers his face with both hands. "Tell me when it's over."

Frank gets up halfway through to run his hands through Mikey's hair and cut from the front. Mikey opens one eye at the touch, glancing at Frank for any sign of his fate: Frank makes a small noise of approval. "Tilt your head down," he instructs, swinging back around to sit behind Mikey, and clips the back of it. "Awesome." He turns off the razor, rubs something into it.

"Cool, can I look?"

"Not yet," he says, and pushes at Mikey's waist. "C'mere, turn around."

 Mikey turns, confused. Frank has a pencil eyeliner out, probably pocketed in the store. "Oh, no way," Mikey says, giving him a horrified look. "…Look, when I said I was _gay_ …" His lips twitch, restraining a laugh.

 

"Shut up. You wanna look like a rock star, right? So sit still. And look up." Frank takes off Mikey's glasses – this is getting to be a habit – and steadies his chin with his hand. Mikey stills under the touch, like a frightened rabbit, and stares at the sky. Frank pencils the eyeliner in carefully while Mikey struggles not to blink, and releases him when it's done. "There. Now look."

Mikey gets to his feet, finds a window on the back of the building to look into, putting on his glasses carefully. His hair's long on top, short on the sides, spiked up in almost a birdlike crest, the eyeliner dark around his eyes. " _Sweet_ ," he enthuses, grinning and turning to give Frank a hug.

Frank restrains a grin and hugs him back. "You like it?"

"Yeah, it's rad," Mikey says, running his hands through it. "You should, like, do this. Cut hair."

Frank snorts. "You just let me know when you find the classified looking for someone with no address, no phone, and no certification, right?" Mikey blinks and his shoulders sag, his eyes abruptly kicked-dog. As if he's never seriously considered the fact that a skill set is not what people are actually looking for in applicants to jobs. Which he probably hasn't: in his world if you want a job you probably have someone who can talk to someone who knows someone else who can get you in the door. Frank shakes his head. "Dude, ignore me being a giant douche, okay. It's all you rocking this look, anyway."

Mikey manages a smile. "My dad would kill me right now."

"I'm pretty sure the hair and makeup is not gonna be his big concern right now," Frank assures him with a laugh.

"Yeah, probably not." Mikey's eyes go distant, and Frank says sharply,

"Come on, let's get moving."

 

By the time they get to Frank's place -- which is really storage for a long-bankrupt furniture supply store – it's already passing dusk and verging into actual dark. Mikey's really starting to drag behind, and his eyes light up when Frank points.

"Here we go," he says, beaming, pointing up. Mikey looks confused. "Second floor," Frank explains as they loiter casually, waiting to make sure they're not being watched, and creep behind the building. "Less damage there, and the staircase from the first floor is all busted up, so no one's going to take your shit. Theoretically." He jumps up on a dumpster, and holds out a hand expectantly for Mikey.

Mikey looks at the dumpster as if it's going to turn into dust under him. He looks up at Frank, a note of pleading in his eyes. Frank hates doing this – throwing all this shit on him at once – but as far as he can tell, it does Mikey a disservice to treat him like a child, so he's not going to. He just gestures impatiently, flicking his hand forward again as if Mikey missed it the first time.

Mikey takes his hand, bracing himself against the lid, and scrabbling with the toes of his boots as Frank hauls him up. The lid creaks in protest. "Okay." Frank points over his head: a decorative balcony that connects the upper windows is just within arm's reach. "I'm going to go first, okay?" Mikey nods, mutely. Frank jumps, grabbing onto the railing, and throws himself over; he peers down at Mikey and reaches out a hand.

Mikey looks down from the dumpster: he looks up at Frank. Then he throws himself up at the railing. He nearly misses it and tumbles down, causing Frank a minor heart attack, but he catches it, swinging his legs a few times. Frank grabs him by the back of Gabe's hoodie and hauls him over the top. "Jesus effing Christ," he mutters. "We're gonna have to work on that."

Mikey's out of breath and laughing. "Yeah," he agrees. "But not bad for my first time, right?"

"Come on," Frank says, rolling his eyes and neatly stepping through the busted second story window. Mikey follows, ducking.

He's missed it here. It's been a few months since he's been back: a brief foster care stay, about a week of living on the streets when he ran off – too dangerous and involved to come back here or any of his usual squats in Jersey – and all the bullshit that ensued when it turned out he wasn't willing to get taken "home" in the back of a cop car.

Of all the foster homes and group homes he's been in, all the houses and apartments and dormitories he's seen in his life – and in seventeen years there have been more than a few – not one of them has ever felt as good to him as this place.

He turns, grinning, at Mikey, and sees the hesitant expression on the lanky boy's face. The great rush of excitement accompanying this homecoming turns into a tight knot of dead weight in his stomach; for the first time in his life, Frank has to see the factory like most other people would. There's broken glass everywhere, structural damage to the beams; their entryway is a fucking obstacle course. Some of the furniture's moldy. Spiders and centipedes share the place with him. The only upside is that for the most part, the rats and roaches are investigating more populated quarters, because there isn't any food in here.

He can't imagine what Mikey must be thinking – he must regret this whole thing by now. He's just broken about eight different laws to come live in an abandoned warehouse with some psycho kid he hardly knows.

"It's, uh." Frank messes up his now-shorn hair, which feels really weird; he stares at the ground. "It probably doesn't look like much, but it's home."

Mikey sets the bag of food down, leans his head on Frank's shoulder, and says, softly, "It looks fucking wonderful," and Frank sort of wants to kiss him for it. Instead he wraps his arm around Mikey's waist and gives him a half-squeeze, then heads briskly for a torn-up couch in an area of dragged-together furniture, rugs and floor lamps, flopping onto it.

" _Yes!_ " he exclaims, "Jesus fuck, I didn't see that one coming." Mikey makes a querying noise behind him and Frank leans all the way over the back of the couch to retrieve an electric guitar from the ground. "Pansy!" he explains exuberantly. "I thought she'd be long gone by now. Didn't have time to come back and hide her." He cradles the guitar in his lap. "Did you miss me, baby? I missed you too." He blows off the dust. "You're probably so out of tune."

Mikey's lips twitch just a little and he sits on the arm of the chair opposite Frank. "I'm glad you and your guitar have such a _special_ relationship. Should I, uh, leave you two alone for some quality time?"

Frank scoffs. "Whatever – you clearly know nothing of love." He forms a chord on the strings and strums them one at a time, a slow arpeggio, pausing in the middle to turn pegs with a frown, hitting harmonics to tune the strings to each other. "What Pansy and I have is pure." He looks up at Mikey with a little smile.

"Right," Mikey grins. "Something like that..." he rolls his eyes pointedly.

Frank studies the fretboard for a long second; just long enough to catch Mikey completely off guard when he sets Pansy aside on the arm of the couch and launches himself at him.

Mikey makes a surprised squeak as he's knocked halfway back into the chair by Frank, and instinctively pulls his knees up, rolling Frank over him. He grapples at Frank and twists sideways; the two fall over onto the cement floor.

"Ow, fuck." Frank lands heavily on his shoulderblade and winces.

"Serves you right, what the hell are you doing?" Mikey, pinning Frank to the floor, makes a face at him.

Frank grins up at him. "I think it's called wrestling." He shifts his weight heavily, and they go rolling across the floor, laughing and cursing in a tangle of fingers scrabbling for purchase, elbows in ribs and the skid of rubber on cement. In the growing darkness, it's hard to see, which just makes the grappling more fun and difficult, fighting nearly-blind.

Frank's wrists get pinned rolling over, and he shoves upwards against Mikey, who laughs, "Fuck no, I've got you this time, you fucking psycho": his fingers clamp down.

Frank relaxes for a second and then, in a sudden vicious movement, flips them both over, his hands landing on either side of Mikey's head. He sits back, on top of Mikey, catches his breath slowly and watches him as his eyes adjust in the dim light.

Mikey blinks up at him, opens his mouth to say something and doesn't, chewing his lower lip a little instead and breathing hard. Frank can feel his heart pounding.

Frank feels suddenly like someone has taken all his organs and twisted; his brain is screaming _do something, you idiot!_ at him. He's confused, almost disgusted with himself, when he says "Yeah, you really got me," and just laughs a little and rolls off of Mikey.

It's not like Frank is lacking experience with this stuff.

Or maybe it is.

He's never taken it slow – sex is all anyone ever wants, in his experience; the rest is usually just an attempt to disguise the real issue, or, more frequently, skipped entirely.

But he knows this isn't like that. He doesn't _want_ this to be like that. Which is kind of freaking him out, to be honest. He should want to have his hands down Mikey's pants right now, at least. And he doesn't. (Well, okay. That's a lie. He would be completely fine with hands being in pants. Mikey's or his. It would be cool either way, really: no complaints here. But he would be completely fine with there being all the other bullshit, too. )

He wants to _kiss_ Mikey. The very thought seems ridiculous. Frank can't remember ever wanting to kiss anyone in his life. It would help if he knew Mikey wouldn't recoil in horror at the concept. Which is also weird: caring if things get fucked up.

Does everyone else have to do this all the time? Shit.

 _Chill the fuck out,_ he screams into his own head, and stands up abruptly. "Hey," he says, brusquely, ignoring Mikey's bewildered, half-hurt look, "I bet if Pansy's still here, the rest of my shit is too."

"Yeah, I bet," Mikey says slowly, and gets to his feet, brushing off the dust and grime from the floor. He just stands, watching: Frank can feel his eyes on him as he inspects all the usual haunts and despite his utter trust in the boy, he feels itchy with it and manages to look studiously in the wrong direction several times.

Sure enough, however, his shit IS still here, under chairs, inside cabinets, under fallen beams -- a massive collection of objects that over the months of sudden safety became stockpiled almost as proof of ownership. Guitar strings, cords, a lot of weird containers, shoes and clothes that he got from dumpster-diving, some plates. And –

"Fuck yeah!" He brandishes the bag of weed, pulled from between two couch cushions.

Mikey smiles a little tersely. "I don't really…smoke…" he begins.

Frank laughs and says, "That's cool." He sits on the couch, pulling his feet up under him while he rolls a joint. "Didn't ask you to."

A few minutes into Frank lighting up, though, Mikey says, "Let me try," and Frank laughs and passes it up to him.

"Don't drop it, okay?"

"I'm not going to fucking drop it." Mikey takes a drag and chokes on it, to Frank's intense amusement: he glares and tries again with better results before passing it back to an impatient Frank. He flops down on the sofa. "Dude. I'm tired."

Frank giggles. "Lightweight."

"I'm not _high_. I was already tired and then you decided it'd be a great idea to kick my ass."

"To be fair, you nearly broke my ribs," Frank points out.

"Yeah, I never told you, I'm really a ninja." Mikey laughs, and when Frank snorts at that, he giggles. Frank is trying studiously to ignore the fact that Mikey has decided to curl up against him, but the giggling makes it hard: he can feel Mikey's body shake when he laughs. His skin is warm where their arms touch, goosebumpy.

Frank shifts abruptly away. "Yeah," he rolls his eyes. "You're like a fucking samurai. Oh, hey, we've got peanut butter." He gets up to get the bag and Mikey makes a mopey noise, flopping on his stomach instead as he loses a Frank to lean on. "Hungry?" When Mikey nods mutely from the couch, Frank digs in the bag. "Well, Mr Way. Has the kitchen told you about our specials tonight?"

Mikey laughs up at him, eyes bright in the lamplight. "Uh…no?"

Frank holds up the Peter Pan. "Well, we have a lovely, uh." He hunts for a word. " _Puree_ of peanut on the menu tonight." Mikey snorts and raises an eyebrow. Frank hoists the bread out, letting the bag flutter to the floor. "That'll be served sandwiched between two slices of the lightest, fluffiest bread you've ever tasted."

"Wow, how can I resist," Mikey deadpans, and Frank tosses the bread at his head. He ducks, putting his hands up to catch it, and sits up so there's sitting room. Frank flops down and proffers the peanut butter.

Mikey, already opening the bread, frowns in sudden consternation. "We didn't get a knife." He laughs a little, staring at the food as if it's a riddle he has to solve.

Frank scoffs. "Do you have hands?" He's already snatched the end piece from under Mikey's nose and wiped peanut butter on it: it's a folded sandwich.

"Ew." Mikey  drags his finger through the peanut butter experimentally. "Ewwwwww," he drags out for emphasis as his fingers slide through the spread.

Frank looks away. "You might notice this place isn't exactly overflowing in amenities," he says, and takes another bite of sandwich, swallowing hard against the cold knot in his throat. "Not to burst your bubble, or anything." He licks his fingers off viciously.

Mikey looks at him for a moment, pressing his lips together in thought. Then he says calmly, "Chill the fuck out, Frankie," and gets out another piece of bread to wipe the peanut butter off on.

Frank blinks, all the spiky defenses he's cultivated for so long charmed so simply into neutrality, and can't think of anything to say. He settles on an embarrassed grin, glancing at Mikey in apology.

Mikey grins back and suddenly swipes at his jaw with a peanut-butter-wielding finger. Frank's startled into laughter. "Dude, you're like, eight." He pokes at Mikey's cheek and leaves only a tiny mark as Mikey ducks past to counterattack; Frank catches at his hand an inch away from his face.

They're both laughing, grappling and acting like kids in a food fight, hands covered in peanut butter, and Frank isn't really thinking about anything when he licks it off Mikey's fingers.

Because, you know, it's _peanut butter_.

Mikey goes absolutely still, rabbitlike, paused crouched with one foot under him, his eyes widening a little as they fix on Frank's, breathing hard for a second as they stare at eachother. When nothing happens, he quickly retreats to one corner, staring at the peanut butter like it's going to save his life. 

"Dude, I…" Frank doesn't exactly know what to say. _I'm sorry I got suckered into a peanut butter battle with you and then_ licked it off your hands _? I'm sorry I don't know what you want? I'm sorry I'm incredibly lame?_

He settles for a gesture instead. "You know? I. Yeah."

" _Yeah_ ," Mikey says intensely, still staring at the peanut butter.

There's not much of a joint left, from where they set it down before, and though there's enough left to roll another, Frank doesn't have enough money to go around buying pot whenever he wants (or for that matter, food) so he picks it up as carefully as he can and considers the larger situation.

"Ever shotgunned?" he asks, casually, suspecting he has "hidden motives" with an arrow suspended on a neon sign above his head.

"I might have if I'd ever smoked before," Mikey says acerbically, not moving from his corner or shifting his eyes. 

"Dude, fuck you and your I'm Mikey Way and I'm Mean Because It's Easier shit. I'm trying to be nice here but if you're gonna waste my resources, I'll just finish it off myself."

"Your _resources_?" Mikey can't help but smile, and then laugh, at the choice of word, looking over at Frank.

"Jesus Christ. C'mere," Frank says, scrabbling across the couch. Mikey's eyes go a little wide again as he enters his space: he's staring at Frank now. Frank pretty nearly finishes off the joint, holding most of the smoke in his mouth, braces his hand against Mikey's jaw, and puts his mouth to Mikey's.

Mikey freezes completely when their lips touch: after a second he apparently remembers that smoking involves, y'know, breathing or something, and inhales.

Frank sits back after a moment, eyes still fixed on Mikey, too-close to focus on in front of him on the couch. Mikey's looking back, and Frank laughs after a second because he's so close he can see two of Mikey, which is funny in and of itself, but this whole situation is just really, really ridiculous and really, why not.

 

And then Mikey leans sideways a little and kisses him. Nearly knocks him over on the sofa, actually. When he imagined kissing Mikey, he always expected Mikey to be hesitant or nervous; he expected to be taking the lead, like before holding Mikey down on the floor or licking his fingers -- he expected…something.

Maybe he has some lowered inhibitions to thank, or maybe his assumptions were just stupid, but either way Mikey's kisses aren't shy or hesitant at all. They're intent and pushy and desperate; they taste like smoke and peanut butter; completely inexperienced and sloppy with teeth colliding and necks at a weird angle.

Frank thinks it's probably the hottest thing he's ever been a part of.

Frank makes a small noise against Mikey's mouth as his lip ring gets snagged somehow, and Mikey pulls back. "Shit – sorry…" He blinks, starting to realize what exactly the fuck they're doing.

"That wasn't a _bad_ noise," Frank says, mildly frustrated, and Mikey pauses. Frank can actually see the battle between _Oh god, I'm a disgusting faggot what am I doing_ and _I can make him make_ good _noises_ cross Mikey's eyes.

There is far too much thinking going on here. Frank kisses Mikey's neck instead. Which may or may not sway decision making one way or the other but at least is going to be fun for him.

Mikey takes a sharp breath in, closing his eyes and relaxing against Frank. "Fuck," he breathes softly, tilting his head against Frank's mouth.

"See?" Frank can't help a devious grin, lifting his lips just enough to talk. "Good noises."

"Yeah," Mikey exhales. "You know...I think I got the concept." He bites the inside of his lip, totally distracted, and Frank stops for a minute because he's fucking pretty like this, out of breath and lips parted and eyes unfocused. Mikey glances at him, self conscious. "Are you _watching_ me?"

 "Um. Yes?"

 "...Why?" Frank isn't sure if this is _why me_ or _why did you stop_.

 "Because you're hot as shit," Frank says bluntly.

Mikey stares at him like he's a three headed alien. An attractive one, apparently, because he kisses him again. This time lingering instead of rushing, drawing things out and slowing it down, and when he bites at Frank's lips this time, it's entirely intentional.

 Frank pushes Mikey down against the arm of the couch, sitting on top of him to kiss him, hard, doesn't care that it's going to be pretty damn obvious in a minute how much he's enjoying this.

 Mikey looks up at him, out of breath, as they take a break to breathe. "So…" he says, nervously, and laughs.

Frank presses his lips together and tries to take a whole breath. Having a discussion right now seems mildly unfair to several important organs. And panic-inducing, since at any moment Mikey is probably going to realize he's making out with a psychopath street kid. "So...?"

"Nevermind," Mikey says and turns his face against the sofa, scrunching his whole face up.

"Mikey Way, you are a fucking mood killer," Frank says, and bites his shoulder. Half intending to be sexy, but half like a zombie, because however this goes, right?

"Fuck _off_ , Frankie," Mikey says in a tone that isn't at all pissed off, and turns his face a little to see him. "Look. Have you. Ever... Done this before?"

"Made out on a couch?" Frank sits up and plasters on a grin that he knows is kind of shit eating. He's relieved when Mikey assumes the answer is yes, because it's not: really he doesn't even know if he's a good kisser, only that he can make Mikey blink and unfocus and that's a happy place.

"No, fuckhead." Mikey takes a shaky breath. "Other stuff." He gestures.

"Yeah." Frank blinks: were other things on the table?

"With a dude?" Mikey chews on his lip.

Frank nods quietly. "Some," he says after a minute lost in thought and memories that aren't all pleasant and also a little distracted by the more appealing thought of doing those things to Mikey.

"I haven't," Mikey says, unnecessarily.

Frank shifts so he's sort of lying half on his side between Mikey and the back of the couch instead of holding himself up. "You don't have to if you don't want to, you know, we can just do _this_."

Mikey's quiet for a long minute, just lying there with his lips pressed together, and he says, not looking at him, "I _do_ want to. Do other things. I just. Haven't, you know? I don't know if I'd be any good. And –" he presses his lips shut again, quelling some other panic. 

"Well if kissing's any indication, you're a fucking fast learner," Frank says, bluntly, and Mikey turns in surprise, laughing and pressing his head against Frank's shoulder. 

Frank turns his head just a little to kiss Mikey on the side of the mouth, and Mikey leans back to kiss him again. This time he spreads his hand out, thumb edging out against Frank's ribs under his shirt, and Frank makes a noise of contented agreement, wriggling a little closer.

Mikey's nervous: Frank can feel his hands shaking a little, but he inches his fingers downward a little anyway, pausing at the waist of Frank's jeans.

"You really..." Frank bites his lip against words he doesn't even want to say. God. His insides feel as though someone has taken a solid grip and twisted in all the right directions. "If you're not..."

"Frank. Shut _up_ \--" Mikey hisses, and presses his mouth against Frank's, fumbling with buttons and shoving his hand into Frank's pants.

Frank gasps against Mikey's lips, hips arching up against the sudden touch, wriggling a little to get his pants down and out of the way and himself in a position so Mikey can move properly - _more touching now please_.

For his part, Mikey goes about this a lot like he goes about kissing: a little fumbly and inexperienced - if anything maybe over-enthusiastic - but determined, and into it. And doing _something_ with the way he twists his wrist -- goddamn -- so you know, fuck if he could be taking it a little easier, it's not like Frank's going to stop him.

"Fuck," he gasps out,

and Mikey says, a little unsure, "...good?"

Frank blinks his eyes open, something snarky and affectionate on the tip of his tongue, but he is completely cut off by something that Mikey does. "Nngh--shit - Mikey - " he mumbles, eyes going wide for a second in total nerve overload and maybe abrupt warning.

After it's done - nails clawed into Mikey's back, gasping into his neck - Frank thinks that, almost (let's be honest here, _almost_ but still worth saying) as good as this whole thing is that Mikey doesn't get up, or look all grossed out at his hands or freak out about having just touched some guy's dick. He just looks at Frank.

And maybe it's arrogant to like being looked at, especially the way Mikey looks at him, like he's a researcher and Frank is an important and beautiful new species. Maybe it makes him a jerk. It's not normal, anyway; normal people that you don't meet in psych wards don't look at him that way. But if he's a jerk, well, he'll keep being one, because he likes that he can make Mikey look at him that way.

And because he's a jerk, he says, "So _yeah_ , good," and laughs a little, and Mikey flushes to his ears and ducks his head. They both sit up awkwardly, Frank getting his jeans and Mikey wiping his hands off on the couch.

"I'm glad," Mikey says a minute later, getting up, walking a pace and a half and sitting back down on the pile of rugs next to the couch. "I mean - I know it wasn't..."

"What?" Frank, reclothed, flops down next to him.

"I don't know." Mikey lies down and looks at him. It's dark now, and the city lights outside don't light the room very much, so he's almost silhouetted, his skin vaguely gold with the cast of the traffic lights. "The whole thing?" He makes some esoteric gesture with his hands that Frank can't interpret, and gives up.

"Dude: I got off. If you're rockin' blue balls, then we can talk about 'the whole thing'." He pauses. He's never actually done what he assumes Mikey's referring to as the whole thing. "Or... _some_ thing."

"No - no, I'm good," Mikey says hurriedly, and when Frank laughs defensively, he amends, staring intently at his nails, "I mean. Maybe some other time...we could talk about that..."

"We could do that, yeah." Frank grins in the dark. He picks up Pansy, who's sitting leaning against the couch, and picks out a tune in dull unamplified notes. Life is good right now.

"My brother and I always talked about starting a rock band," Mikey says, turning a little, towards the music. His face presses into Frank's arm, and Frank smiles into the darkness, glad he isn't visible. "I mean - we even sort of did, except that, uh, it was just us and neither of us could play for shit." He laughs. "I don't think that's really a band."

"It sounds good, though," Frank says, strumming softly. "I mean - I don't have a brother, anything like that. It's cool that you guys are so close."

"Yeah..." Mikey's quiet, thoughtful for a long time. "He helped with the insanity at home a lot, I guess. It's not like we always get along, you know?"

"Helped?"

"Hmm?"

"Past tense?"

"Oh - douchebag had to go away to art school and shit. Fucking leave me with the parents for four years so he could go major in _sequential art_." Frank can't see Mikey, but he can almost see the gesture tha. His tone is affectionate but not without real bitterness.

"They only want one creative kid in the family, huh?"

Mikey yawns. "Even that's a little much. He's lucky it's in the city and not back home -- they would have made him commute, probably, keep an eye on him." Mikey sighs. "I shouldn't be so hard on them, I mean, it does actually affect Dad's job what people think of us, I just..."

"It does not."

"What?"

"It doesn't! I mean, forget my stance on government, who the fuck cares what the kids of politicians do? No one votes for people because their kids are upstanding citizens. That's bullshit. Manipulative _bullshit_." Frank hits a power chord for emphasis. "They're controlling your fucking mind, and the worst part is, you believe them when they say it's your fault." Mikey is completely silent for a long time, and Frank feels a little awkward. "Sorry. I -- sorry."

"No, you're just kind of amazing," Mikey says quietly as if half-hoping Frank can't hear him.

" _We_ should start a rock band," Frank tells him, as if this is the logical answer to such things, and Mikey turns on his side and curls up to Frank, smiling against his skin.

"Yeaah."

Frank sets Pansy aside. "Dude, we should," he insists one final time, before throwing an arm over Mikey's waist and closing his eyes.


	4. broken glass in the morning light

Mikey wakes into warm light, shaking the heaviness of sleep. For a few moments the night before seems like an especially vivid, compelling dream. It has to be. Running away...kissing and touching on the couch. Those things belong to another life, certainly not one owned by one Michael James Way. 

Then the warmth of Frank curled next to him, one arm sprawled over his lower back, kind of jogs his memory. He blinks at the rusty floor, the scratchy rug under his skin. At what he knows he did, his stomach turning over with a real awareness - frightening, sort of - that the decisions of last night were no one else's but his.

He shifts sideways, sitting up, his heart suddenly hammering at his throat. He's really fucking past the point of no return here. This isn't never knowing what girl he had a crush on. This isn't knowing he has a crush on the boy in front of him in AP English. This isn't writing bad poetry in his journal or freaking out at the internet at large or bursting in on G in the middle of inking to blurt it out like a confession ( _IthinkIlikeboys_ ) so that someone could tell him _it's okay; it's normal; it's a phase; it'll go away_ (only half of which he got).

This is running away with his stupid, incredible roommate in an ambulance and hiding in the upstairs of some warehouse and getting him off on the couch.

This is liking the way Frank looks when he's touching him.

This is liking touching him.

This is not a phase that's going to go away. _Fuck_.

Mikey feels dizzy, like his head is detaching from his body. Like he can watch himself, this body that can't go back and over it the brain that wants to tear it to pieces. Even the fact that he's started crying is registering on a really weird level, like it's true, and he knows it, but he can't feel it.

Frank had given him every out. Every chance to say, "No, this isn't what I want"; "no, I'm not ready". And he didn't. Hell, he he had told Frank to shut up. He had been the one to bring up doing more. He had been the one to say he wanted to. He had even been the one to ask to smoke. Mikey can't even fucking blame this on being high. Maybe he wouldn't have done it if he weren't _maybe_ \- maybe he knew that.

There's no going back. There's no undoing this. 

 

He involuntarily whimpers, hunching against his knees, and Frank mumbles in his sleep, then startles awake and sits up when he realizes Mikey isn't under his arm. "Huh-what. Mikey?" He touches Mikey's back. "Mik-"

Mikey pulls away from the touch. "I can't. I can't do this." He knows he's not making any sense, knows this isn't fair to Frank.

Behind him, he can feel Frank still a little, his fingertips still grazing his shoulderblade. "Do." Frank pauses for a second, before going on. "Do you want to go home?" It takes Mikey a second to read his voice: he's heard Frank be defensive before. He hasn't heard him be _upset_ , apprehensive; behind his usual front of nonchalance it's a little weird.

Mikey shakes his head. "No." It comes out barely vocalized, just a breath. He coughs a little. "No, I. I want. Fuck. I don't know what I want."

"Mikey, what the fuck?" Frank says in frustration, and Mikey tenses away from it. "Look - I'm sorry. Talk to me."

He turns to look at Frank. "I can't go back now. You know? I've actually done - all this. There's no going back. There's no being - better, now." It sounds stupider coming out of his mouth than it does in his head: he feels really dumb, in front of Frank, wants Frank not to think he's immature and naive, but he needs to say this. "I'm sorry..." he mumbles.

Frank looks at him for a long time and says, "Dude, I'm sorry to be typical here, but fuck that." Mikey glances at him. It is typical: it's so Frank, and it's so goddamn reassuring because of it. "Like - I mean. For one thing, you can go back. If you want to, you can go back any time you want to. You can go to the police, go to a pay phone, call someone and pretend I kidnapped you, pretend nothing happened, go take your meds and stand in line and be all you can be or whatever and get out in time to take a girl to the prom."

"That's not what I mean," Mikey says cautiously. It is, but it isn't. Mikey doesn't want to take some girl to the prom. He wants to _want_ to take some girl to the prom. He wants to be normal. And he's never going to be.

Frank folds his legs up under him and says, "Yeah, I know." He furrows his brow a little and says, "Because all that is _bullshit_. And the people who tell you that you can be _better_ are bullshit too." He's staring at Mikey, leaning forward just a little: his whole body propelled by the intensity of his complete faith in what he says. Mikey stares back. He doesn't meet people's eyes very often, but more often than not these days he ends up looking Frank in the eyes: it's a little weird to suddenly be noticing the color of someone's eyes and the way they look at you.

Especially when that's the way Frank is looking at him, like it's vitally important that Mikey understand what he's trying to say.

Who knows - maybe it is. To Mikey, anyway.

"I just - you don't need to be _better_ , Mikey. Or different. Or _normal_. It's a goddamn lie. I like you being you. _You_ should like being you: you're fucking _fine_ that way, and anyone who says you aren't is a fucking asshole, okay?" His eyes are bright; a little angry. 

Mikey ducks his head and nods, face burning. People have told him he's smart before, that he does well at school, hell, even that he's talented - but no one's ever told him just to be himself. Maybe G, in a roundabout older brother sort of way ( _What the fuck, Mikey, you're actually pretty rad. When did that get approved?_ ): but no one his age, not to his face like it's important and something he should hear. Certainly no one he fucking likes, much less has messed around with. It's a little surreal.

He wants to stay here forever. He also wants to run away to a cave where compliments don't exist.

Then Frank does actually touch his face, this time to tip his head up with his thumb, his hand curved so they're looking each other in the eyes. "I mean it. Don't believe that shit."

Mikey is momentarily terrified: of what he can't say, exactly. Of Frank wanting this too, of these things being normal, of being himself (because who the fuck is that?), of all these new things that make him feel _okay_ , _good_ even; of not being afraid.

And then Frank is ducking in to kiss him, his hand sliding around to the side of Mikey's neck, and he thinks, _fuck it_ ; he thinks _it's going to be okay_ , _he thinks we're fucking rock stars_ and the world seems suddenly right and brand new and theirs. Frank's hand on his neck seems to pull the rest of the worry out of him; when they pull away he's smiling.

 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry - I'm such a freak," he apologizes, but he's laughing at himself a little now, and Frank grins and says,

"Yeah, well, what did I expect, I picked up a boy in the hospital."

Mikey shoves him. "Like hell you picked me up. Begged me to come with you, more like," and Frank grins and lets himself be pushed over, looking up at him with raised eyebrows. "Just a little," Mikey prods, and Frank laughs.

"Okay, maybe there was some begging involved. But let's be fair, I'm not the only one -- you wrote some shit in that journal of yours that I _know_ is about me."

"You _read_ my _journal_?" Mikey freezes, too abjectly horrified to make the called-for joke about Frank being an arrogant dick. What had he written? Oh god, there's something like _show me how you turn yourself into concrete and steel_. Jesus. "Frank, that stuff is private..."

"It was an accident! You left it open. And it's _good_ , that's what, it's awesome - way better than that emo bullshit Wentz always read in group when the nurses thought he was fucking around too much. And _definitely_ better than the rants in mine. Between the two of us we really could turn out some lyrics, I'm not kidding." 

"You. I." Mikey blinks. And laughs. "Okay."

"Okay?" Frank grins, pleased with whatever part of that is being accepted without question.

"I mean, fuck it, it's not like I can keep secrets around here."

"Not _well_ ," Frank muses. "Especially not since I brought the damn thing with me." He digs in his lower cargo pocket and produces it: a small black moleskin, the pages curling up from overuse and being stuffed in a raindampened pocket. He waves it, pages of tiny scribbly handwriting in twelve different directions, little illustrations and arrows to ten pages later accompanying the text, an ode to hypergraphia.

"Oh, Jesus, Frank," Mikey feels a little like Frank just dragged out his baby blanket or something: a simultaneous wash of embarrassment and relief. "How much of that did you read?"

"Eh," Frank says noncommittally. "Just flipped around." He tosses it to Mikey. "I'm serious though, we should get on this lyric writing business." 

Mikey nods and flips through his journal as if it will reveal to him the words worth putting to music. "Yeah, no, I totally will."

Frank grins at him, maybe a little amused by him or maybe just excited that he's giving this a chance, or maybe skeptical that he even is, Mikey can't read it.

"Do you have a radio?" he says instead of addressing that.

Frank shakes his head. "No electricity. We could get a battery powered one though."

"Frank, you don't have to lie to me, I know we spent most of our money already. We can't just get things."

"No, no – we totally _can_. Dude, you need to learn the art of dumpster diving and there is no one more qualified than me to show it to you."

Mikey blinks. Dumpster diving? Part of him is really grossed out by the idea of their stuff coming from the dumpster. _Gross_. Germs, rats. On the other hand, he chides himself for judging. How else are they supposed to get stuff? And it makes him wonder how much is thrown away that Frank can just certainly state that they can get a radio. Is he just being nice? "I mean, I don't need it until tonight anyway," he says and feels weird about having phrased it that way.

"What do you need it for?" Frank asks, furrowing his brow.

 

Mikey crosses his legs and looks back down at the journal. There's a scribbled drawing in it – not great, but okay -- of himself with headphones on, sitting with words written all around him and his hands up as if he can block them out. Some of them are the typical: _failure, disappointment, not good enough, nothing_. And then some more specific, hidden under layers of other words as if even he can't admit it or let anyone else see: _faggot, sissy, queer_. _Liar. Fake._

In the corner there's a little abstract radio tower, because he doesn't know quite how that works these days, and it has little lines cutting through the words to his headphones. They're supposed to have words on them too but you can't see the words on radio waves, at least, that's what he told the shrink.

It's a really silly drawing, in retrospect.

Whatever. He also left the lyrics to "Asleep" as a suicide note once.

"There's this guy I know, well I mean, I don't _know_ him, but he's this DJ, on this little rock station in Jersey," he starts, and takes a breath. "Geoff? He's on at...maybe midnight to 5 am. Plays all kinds of stuff. A lot of 80s and 90s, like early emo and sometimes hardcore and like, new wave even. I guess they just let him do what he wants still because no one's awake that time of night. I used to get up really early, like 4:30, to study for AP classes before I had to go to school, and Gerard always had his radio set to that."

"You would get up at four in the morning to study?" Frank looks at him as if this is a better indicator of his insanity than, you know, trying to kill himself.

Mikey investigates him back. "Yeah? I mean, I had to like, shower, and eat breakfast, and get out the door by 6, and I have after school shit like debate team and stuff so I was never home until like 7 or 8 and then I had to eat and do homework...by the time I got done with that I just wanted to chill."

"Uh-huh?" Frank has his head tilted like he's trying to translate this into his own language.

"I didn't want to screw up on a test! That shit's college credit. Anyway. So I got _into_ this show, but last year I just couldn't--" He sighs, chewing on his lip. He doesn't even like saying out loud how much he'd fucked up. "I just stopped getting up early. I just wasn't keeping up with shit, I wasn't studying. If anything I'd stay up late to do it and then I'd just...stop. I don't know, it all went to hell."

Frank just nods mutely. Mikey can tell he wants to say something, but he's watching him intently. "So this DJ that you kinda know?"

"Well, I kept staying up to hear the show. Geoff's really cool. He's young, I mean he can't be that much older than us, or maybe I just think he's not, I don't know. And he talks about politics and being yourself and respecting people. You'd like him I think. And he plays really good music. So I'd call in a lot, request shit or just ask questions, and he kind of got to expect it after a while I think."

"Wait, so he knew the mayor's son was calling his radio show."

"My father isn't the mayor! He's just an alderman, he's _running_ for mayor. And no. I didn't even use my name. Half the time it was like requests online and shit. You know, 'we've got a request from NightElf32" or whatever."

" _Please_ tell me you are not NightElf32."

"I am not NightElf32. _Please_. Whatever. See if _you_ get to kiss me again."

Frank makes a sad pouty face and Mikey laughs and leans across and kisses him.

On the one hand, this whole conversation has him thinking about The Big Fuckup and school and his father, the campaign and all the classes he's missing, how terribly terribly inadequate he is in every way and how his life is a joke orchestrated by God for laughs.

But on the other hand, he's also thinking about the way Frank looked at him when he had talked about what he'd gone through just to keep up before, the way Geoff always talked about life like a battle and freedom and love even like they were something concrete you could care for.

And maybe he did understand that right now and maybe _fuck them_.

 

Frank says several minutes into kissing, "you know, we do need to kill a couple hours," and Mikey says, "shut up, Frank," and then, "a couple _hours_?" and Frank laughs and shoves him onto the carpet and licks his neck.

 

This time Mikey is not high. This time Mikey is also not the one _doing_ but being _done to_ , which is supposedly less gay according to all the rules but feels way, way more gay in his head, with Frank's mouth on him and his thumbs pressing into Mikey's hips and Mikey just watching, squirming and trying not to make needy noises and failing, but mostly staring: trying to memorize the way his mouth looks and his stupid mohawk and chipped paint nails and the faded bruises on his arms. He's still wearing Mikey's Anthrax shirt which is sort of amazingly hot and shouldn't be, and every so often he looks up at Mikey with some look, something: pleased, vulnerable, something. Like he's needs to make sure Mikey's still there.

 _Yeah_ , he's fucking there.

 

Frank is out of pot for the moment but he does have the remainder of some rolling tobacco, and he lies on his back rolling skinny little cigarettes in his hands like it's a zen meditation while Mikey blinks at him sleepily and wonders if rolling cigarettes after sex is really the same thing as smoking them.

"I'm glad he saved your life," Frank says, and Mikey blinks, surprised.

"I didn't get to that part of the story yet."

"That's how those stories always end." Frank sits up restlessly and looks at him. "Am I wrong?"

"He did a kind of shit job, though, right?" Mikey laughs and flips his wrist around. He'd shed the bandage yesterday, though he hasn't managed to get the hospital bracelet off. A shiny pink scar remains where it's healing. "I mean shit, if I was going to not-kill-myself I could have skipped the drama."

"Yeah, total failure. I don't know why you want to listen to this dude again. Someone should tell him he needs to rethink his role as counselor to the insomniac depressives of New Jersey." He fumbles around himself for a lighter and Mikey watches him for a second. Maybe he was being overwrought in his journal before, but the things that make Frank _Frank_ , the quick movements and hard lines and deadpan humor, seem to crawl right into Mikey and live in his chest.

"I could eat like, three whole pizzas," he says by way of changing the subject, and Frank nods in agreement. Mikey's suddenly aware he hasn't eaten at all today. He sits up a little and reaches for the loaf of bread, abandoned on the couch.

At home, he would have eaten twice by now. He usually scarfs down the equivalent of a Kellogg's complete breakfast every day when he's at home: eggs and toast and cereal and orange juice, taking up nearly an hour of cordial earlymorning family time before he heads off to school. His stomach growls just thinking about it.

This isn't going to be like that. That isn't how Frank lives. But he'd rather have this than the proscribed small talk, the static between pleasantry and perfect little boxes to fit into. If luxury is a way to hide that then he wants to throw it all away.

"No, man, save that for a rainy day." Frank stretches and gets to his feet, holding a hand down for Mikey. "We've got some hunting to do."

 

They head out. It's not dark yet, but it is getting around to the time things close, or at least the end of the first full shift at most places and they want to get to the trash as early as possible after people aren't going to be looking at it. "Bandanas are good," Frank says, finding one from a previous dive and a keffiyeh that will suit the purpose just as well if not better. "You're dealing with dumpsters. They're gross. Flies. Rotting food. Get used to it. We're looking for non perishables and curb dumps and things in vacuum packages with dates on them. If you get a good find though I'm not gonna say no, I'm not stupid."

"Wait, people will throw away stuff that isn't expired?" Mikey asks as they jump down to the street.

"Sure. What, you think they donate this crap to homeless shelters? It's bruised? Out. Not selling? Toss it. Sell by date is tomorrow? Out. Gone. Goodbye." He gestures out with his thumb. "Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Aldi. Fuckin' gold, dude. Or terrible depending on how you look at it." He shrugs. "You could probably feed whole nations on the shit we throw away in this country."

Mikey thinks about that, thinks about how much food they throw away just in his house. "Is this illegal?" he asks, putting on the keffiyeh slowly, with a momentary flash to getting this adventure abruptly brought to an end by some cop catching him half in a dumpster. Not sexy.

"Discarded trash is public property," Frank says wisely. "Unless it's like, customer lists, or someone's credit card information. But yeah. This is entirely legal." He pauses and regards Mikey curiously. "Unlike, I don't know, breaking out of a psych ward, stealing an ambulance, and smoking up in an abandoned warehouse."

"While having crazy gay sex," Mikey says. Though nothing they've done so far has been that crazy. Or even totally sex, he thinks, though he's unclear on where the lines are there.

"Sorry, you dirty sodomite," Frank informs him, "but this is New York. That part is totally legal. Hell, we could get _married_ here."

"Sweet, let's do it," Mikey grins, and Frank just raises his eyebrows and Mikey can't tell which one of them is messing with the other but he just wants to laugh.

 

There's something amazing and bandit-like about putting a bandana over your face and sneaking behind stores to rummage through bins as tall as you are. The amount of cool shit to take home is dwarfed only by what they can't carry: food, electronics, clothing.

Mikey finds some milk crates so they, aside from their weird clothes, look pretty much like any other hipster losers carrying their shit to their apartment. Trader Joe's feeds them for days: loaves upon loaves of day-old bread and packaged cheeses and sliced meat and pie and a fruit platter. A thrift store finds them t-shirts and jeans.

 

Frank is insistent that Mikey learn how to fuck over the MTA. "Look, we can't dumpsterdive for CASH. Unless you want to stay in a twelve block radius, it's gotta happen somehow."

Mikey's never even ridden on a subway before, so the idea of trying to jump a turnstile nearly sends him running back up the stairs. _I'm going to screw this whole thing up_ he thinks, staring at the fairly well guarded, busy station. _Someone will see us_.  Frank explains several techniques easily -- from collecting discarded cards and combining them to walking in with someone else on the revolving door -- but the entire thing seems like an arrest waiting to happen, and they go back to the top of the stairs so Mikey can breathe.

"I can't do this." 

"That's okay, we'll try again tomorrow."

Mikey stands there, teetering. _You failure_. Frank isn't being harsh, but where his father, passive aggressive and derogatory, might have perhaps provoked defense, Frank's slightly let-down acceptance merely makes him feel terrible. "No, I'll figure something out."

He doesn't know how to cheat, but he does know how to complain. That he's had years of experience watching.

He passes off his stuff on Frank and swaps out his boots for a pair of shiny high-tops they've picked up. "Trust me."

He snags a discarded card off the ground, attempts to use it, and then goes to town on the poor MTA worker behind the customer service desk about how this just got money put on it, it should be working, he doesn't have time and he has to meet his agent ("client" seems unlikely). He gets bitched at, but in the meantime Frank has neatly fare-dodged on his own and Mikey gets keyed through.

"Genius," Frank says when Mikey meets him toward the last car.

"My dad," Mikey says with a face and takes half the stuff back, heading with him towards NYU and the promise of callously-discarded electronics.

By the time they're headed home, it's properly dark. They're laughing under two crates of supplies. Mikey feels a little like he owns the world, and also a little baffled at the amount of shit that's just getting sent to the dump somewhere. He's tired and not sure how they're getting this up to the second story, but he also just wants to stay up all night and be as healthy and awesome as he feels right now.

"You are a lucky charm, Mikeyway," Frank tells him. "I think this is the best dive I've had in ages."

Mikey hardly hears him. "This is awesome," he says. "We could just live like this – you know?"

Frank laughs at him, affectionately. "Yeah, I know. Come on, man, let's see if this radio turns on."


End file.
